YOUR EPITAPH

YOUR EPITAPH
Read 1 Samuel 31:1--13

What do you think those who survive you will write as your epitaph?
How will your obituary read? What words will be used in the eulogy to sum
up your life? Saul's epitaph was a sad one, summing up the tragic life
of this man who played such an important role in David's life. He was
a king who could have been David's role model and mentor, but who
instead almost became his murderer.

Like Saul and his sons, we are all going to die. There's no escaping
it. That means that rather than denying death, we must come to terms
with it.

Sometimes death is sudden. Sometimes it's long and drawn out.
Occasionally, it is beautiful, sweet, and peaceful. At other times it
is wrenching and hideous, bloody and ugly. There are times, from our
viewpoint, it comes too early. On other occasions it seems the cold
fingers of death linger too long as some dear soul endures pain and
sadness, loneliness and senility. But however it comes . . . it
comes to us all. There is no escape.

But here's the good news for Christians: We who know the Lord Jesus
Christ carry within ourselves a renewed soul and spirit, that part of
us which He invaded at the moment we were born from above---when we
became Christians. He has taken up His residence there and has given
us a new nature. Though our outer shell hurts and groans and is dying,
our inner person is alive and vital, awaiting its home with the Lord. That
connection occurs the moment---yes, the very moment---we die.

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying,
yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light
affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond
all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at
the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are
temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2
Corinthians 4:16--18)

What role are you playing today? Is it authentic? Is it genuinely
Christian? If so, let me return to the questions I asked as you began
this reading for today. What do you think those who survive you will
write as your epitaph? How will your obituary read? What words will
sum up your life?

Taken from Charles R. Swindoll, Great Days with the Great Lives
(Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2005). Copyright © 2005 by Charles R.
Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.